Archive

Quotes

There is no method by which men can be both free and equal.

—Walter Bagehot, 1863

He may be a patriot for Austria, but the question is whether he is a patriot for me.

—Emperor Francis Joseph, c. 1850

My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.

—Frederick the Great, c. 1770

I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.

—H. Rap Brown, 1967

You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.

—Henrik Ibsen, 1882

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

—Lord Acton, 1887

The vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.

—John Nance Garner, c. 1967

What experience and history teach is this—that nations and governments have never learned anything from history or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.

—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 1830

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

—Martin Luther King Jr., c. 1967

The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.

—Anthony Burgess, 1972

The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1774

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right.

—Judge Learned Hand, 1944

Politics is the art of the possible.

—Otto von Bismarck, 1867